It would be a challenge to find a less exciting title for a movie than “The Situation,” the diligent new drama set in occupied Iraq. But as the film presents one reason after another why the American occupation is a desperately forlorn cause, one wonders if the title is meant to harken back to that evocative World War II saying, Situation Normal, All Fouled Up (that’s the version for polite company).

Director Philip Haas’ story attempts to weave together many complex political and social realities – not always to the best dramatic effect – and it takes some energy to keep up with the complexities. But one thing “The Situation” makes crystal clear: the war in Iraq is the very definition of the term snafu.

Connie Nielsen (“Gladiator,” “Brothers”) plays Anna, an American journalist who has been in Baghdad for seven long months. We meet her as she’s heading to Samarra to investigate an incident in which two Iraqi boys out after curfew were thrown off a bridge by American troops. One drowns, the other accuses. Tensions increase between the soldiers, insurgents and average citizens caught in between.

In Samarra we meet the cynical sheik Tahsin (Said Amadis), an insurgent named Walid (Driss Roukh) and his old friend Rafeeq (Nasser Memarzia), who spent years as an Iranian prisoner of war and would prefer to stay neutral.

There’s also a whole cast of characters back in Baghdad. Anna’s boyfriend Dan (Damian Lewis) is an American intelligence officer whose good intentions are getting him nowhere. She also has an Iraqi love interest, a photographer, Zaid (Mido Hamada), who longs to go someplace cold, where he can see snow.

He’s by no means the only character looking for a way out of Iraq. Iraqi diplomat Duraid (Mahmoud El Lozy) would sell out his best friend for a posting in Australia.

Screenwriter Wendell Steavenson is a journalist who had never written a script until Haas, whose earlier films include “Angels & Insects” and “Up at the Villa,” came calling. He’d read a piece she’d published about a young Jihadi and liked the way she handled its complexities so much he asked her to write him a script set in Iraq.

She used a true incident, the drowning, as her leaping-off point and then constructed a web of secrets and lies that feel plausible. Scenes such as the one where the uncle of the drowned boy asks for a pay-out from the Americans seems like a missive from the front lines.

But the movie is burdened by its own exposition. It’s nothing like “Syriana,” where you have to take your best guess at what’s going on, but it might have benefited from some of that opacity. Stevenson doesn’t want to lose us, so she takes our hand to guide us. At a certain point, all you can think about is that hand, clutching at you.

There’s also a problem with the actors. Nielsen can be very good, but she’s stiff and in the scenes in which she’s required to be vulnerable, has an oddly plastic quality. (When a 41-year-old actress reminds you of Mandy Moore, the obvious question is, is it real or is it Botox?)

Then, in the scenes involving amateurs, cast off the streets of Morocco, you almost hear the script being read, and it feels false. That’s a shame, particularly when a movie is so committed to conveying reality. Still, it’s a credit to the material and the basic plot that even as you’re groaning over a clunky speech, you’re completely focused on what the situation in Iraq actually is.

Violent police encounters in California last year led to the deaths of 157 people and six officers, the state attorney general’s office said Thursday in a report that provides the first statewide tally on police use-of-force incidents.